Word: buildings
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...quite an impact. Five years ago, industry spokesmen were confidently predicting that the U.S. would have 1,000 realtors producing power by the year 2000, and utilities were ordering 40 new plants annually. But last year utilities ordered only four new nuclear plants and deferred or canceled plans to build seven more. An important reason for the slowdown is that demand for electric power has not risen as rapidly as forecasters anticipated. Yet another major factor is that delays-some necessary, others merely obstructionist-have stretched completion time of a plant to ten to twelve years. The possibility that plants...
...promises little contamination of the environment, cannot fill the gap either. Researchers at Princeton and other labs have made some progress on fusion, in which atomic nuclei are combined rather than split. But physicists think it will take decades of problem solving before they can even attempt to build commercial reactors...
...both. Since the U.S. withdrew from Viet Nam, resistance to nuclear power has become the new crusade for many members of a society that otherwise lacks compelling causes. Nuclear power is an inviting target for those who revolt against bigness-big science and technology, big industry that must build and manage reactors, big government that must safeguard and regulate them. Part of the opposition stems from a desire to return to the supposedly simpler good old days, in which people would do more for themselves and, as one bumper sticker suggests, SPLIT WOOD, NOT ATOMS...
NUCLEAR COSTS. Says David Cromie of Chicago's antinuclear Citizens for a Better Environment: "The most damning word in the English language is 'uneconomic.' " Foes charge that nuclear power plants cost more to build than, say, coal-burning plants, running more than $800 per kw, vs. around $700 for coal. They also argue that nukes operate well below their projected capacities, making the power they generate even costlier...
Industry figures indicate otherwise. Nuclear plants do cost more than coal-fired ones to build, but they are no less reliable. Most U.S. nukes have operated or have been available about as many days as fossil-fuel plants, which must also undergo periodic shutdowns for maintenance or safety checks. The electricity they produce is often competitive. Over a two-year period, the New England Electric System, operating in a region that is far from fossil-fuel sources, provided consumers with a nuclear-generated kwh. for 1.239?, or less than half the 2.596? for a kwh. generated by fossil fuels...